Napalm Death - Utilitarian

 Napalm Death’s fourteenth LP Utilitarian is probably the record that many fans were waiting for. Utilitarian is a grindcore record through and through. For album after album Napalm Death played death metal with little or no punk elements. They were making good records, yes, but everyone was still asking: “Where did the grind go?” Well, it’s back.

Utilitarian plays faster and more furious than any ND album of late, and it does it with the best song-writing the band has achieved recently too. Don’t expect Scum, but expect an extremely heavy grind attack played by some very experienced old boys. Vocals are spot on, showing one of the widest ranges of different types of screams in any metal band around these days. The madness of oldschool Napalm Death is of course gone, with the savagery of the early days traded for a more level-headed, serious delivery that they have achieved over the course of their death metal work. The raw production is also of course gone as metal is a big business now and all that. But even the most crystalline production could’t hide the harsh edge of these riffs. Structure and song-writing is immaculate. Utilitarian should be textbook on how to write a grind album well. It all works perfectly and never becomes boring or repetitive. In fact, like on all my favorite grind records, there is a commendable amount of variation. Utilitarian sports thrashy Nasum breakdowns, doomish segways and choral vocals. This is probably my third or fourth favorite ND album now. There is nothing more to say, except perhaps that the cover is classic Napalm! You know what to expect now. Get it if you haven’t already.

In short: Napalm Death fuse elements of their past albums with their early sound and decades of experience to bring one of the best albums to the table. Perhaps what it would be like if Nasum had played Scum.

Standout tracks: “The Wolf I Feed”, “Collision Course”

Score: 9.0

Conan - Monoss

If we study the cover art of the new Conan album and read the title, we are suggested ideas of massiveness; great, lumbering giants. One could never blame Conan of false advertising here, as contained in its mere 40-minute runtime there are some of the fattest, thickest, most devastatingly heavy riffs you’re ever likely to hear in your life. These three Liverpudlians are here to take the crown, don’t be mistaken, as Monnos is an absolute hulk of an album. Stoner/doom is rarely this good, but apparently this is more than just regular stoner/doom. This is “caveman battle doom”, a term that somehow accurately describes the atmosphere of Conan’s music. Conan is only a very new band, having been conceived in 2006, and this being their first full-length album.

The first thing that you’ll notice is the guitar tone. Holy shit! you’ll say to yourself, that’s fucking heavy. The guitar is just so lush and bass-laden that it alternates between chords with incredible smoothness, creating grooves that naturally course through your spine, forcing you to nod your head. It’s just such a deliciously huge sound, like massive weight coming down from above, and so damn well-produced, too. The vocals are almost always wielded dually; soaring, droning harmonies that add a slight element of post-metal to the sound, reminiscent of Baroness or Isis, but less progressive, more stylistically focused. The first half of the album slugs it out with lazy mid-paced stoner riffage and on the final three songs of the album things slow right down, each song like an impossibly huge titan slowly rearing its unbelievable carcass into sight.  Golden Axe in the middle is quiet – a moment of peace between battles. Headless Hunter hits slow, but eventually culminates in the most colossally epic stoner dirge you can imagine. Invisible Throne slows down even more, ending the album on a point nothing short of drone metal, and one of such monstrous gravity at that. But Monoss is not hard to listen to. Its grooves are too powerful and its guitar tones feel too damn good, and when you’ve been hypnotized by the singing your body involuntarily enters a state of trance-like lull.

What I’ve been meaning to say here is that this is a total no-brainer for anyone who likes heavy, slow music, and this will be the gateway for a large younger generation of metalheads to begin their newfound love for that which lumbers. Monoss is a perfect of example of why 2012 is going to be such a great year in metal – music that really raises the standards of quality and extremity. ABSOLUTELY LEGENDARY. I want more.

In short: Conan conjure up the imagery of epic battles and gargantuan beasts, and it just happens to be the heaviest fucking thing you’ve heard in quite a while, doomed ones. Lap it up.

Standout tracks: All are incredible

Score: 9.5

Fukpig - 3

Two years ago, Fukpig released what I thought was one of the filthiest, most rotten little punk/metal albums to come out in a long time, entitled Belief Is the Death of Innocence. Their third album – 3 – follows in the same footsteps as their previous work: a crust foundation with overtones of black metal and grindcore, notable for its conspicuous use of cheesy goth-horror keyboards. Here the boys (who you may know from their other acts Anaal Nathrakh and Mistress) continue to perform with unbridled hatred for and fierce resistance against mankind in a memorable, thrashing style.  Although it is essentially the same thing, I feel that this time around they have restrained their vicious punk mentality a little for a more sinister, metallic resonance. It’s only a slight shift but it makes the difference between a masterpiece of catchiness that you want to play over and over again (BItDoI) and just a really killer album. Catchlines like “Fascist moron” or “Who the fuck asked for you?” from 3 retain the Fukpig ethic, but hold nothing in terms of sheer go-fuck-yourself power over BItDoI’s hateful “Die, bastard!” or (my favourite) “Fuck you and fuck your son!” The riffs don’t seem to exacerbate the same vigorous frenzy in the thrashing of my head, either. It’s just a little bit more static than BItDoI, it doesn’t quite hold the same violently ejaculated energy.

But, that said, this is still Fukpig and everything is there: the D-beats, the keyboards, the hatred and the catchy crustcore riffing, and it’s a great respite when you’ve been over-listening earlier releases. The first few tracks are all nasty, cutting little blackened-crust knock-outs. The song-writing becomes somewhat more monotonous around the middle of the album, but is revived by a lethal breakdown into a plodding doom riff on “In the Absence of Your Savior”, and you are thus welcomed again into the final rush of crusty energy on the last two tracks. The conclusion to the album is also, indeed, satisfying.

In summary: Fukpig fail to bring us a better release than their 2010 effort, but this is understandable and it still kicks the arse of most of the popular new blackened crust craze.

Standout tracks: “Democracy Reset”, “The Eulogy of a Crushed Romantic”

Score: 7.5

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